Fun, Facts, Fiction, Fairytales

Most of us can remember times when we were growing up that we were told things we thought were true until we became older, things that were shared at home or repeated on the playground. What started me thinking about these stories were the small white discolorations on my fingernails. It reminded of what I was told as a child that caused them. I believed the little white marks that grew out naturally in my fingernails were the number of little white lies I’d told. Sometimes I would look at my fingernails and wonder what lies I’d told and when and as a kid, I couldn’t recall if I told a lie or not.

Or how about the tale that people tell about the petals on a daisy? When a girl picks the flower she is to pluck its white petals one by one from its bright yellow center, chanting “He loves me…He loves me not” until the petals are all gone. When the last petal falls, it will reveal whether or not the person you are thinking about really loves her. I supposed that it would work if a guy pulled the petals.

Another repeated tale about a flower is the one about dandelions or buttercups. Someone would pick one of the blooms and place it just below the chin near the neck to see “if you liked butter.” That was a silly little game I was told.

An untruth that my mom, Sybil Beck foisted on us as kids was when she would prepare eggs, putting them in water to make hard cooked eggs for sandwiches. If she hadn’t let them cook long enough and the centers were even slightly runny, she would say that she boiled them too long. The reason she said this was because she fussed as a child when her mom, Rebecca Miner served an underdone egg to her and her mom made up the story.

That reminds me of another misconception my mother had as a child. She thought cows were the mothers and horses were the fathers. She also thought cats were the mothers and dogs were the fathers. In her mind, because men and women looked different, so should the animals. Later, she used to laugh about it saying, “I grew up on a farm and should have known better.”

So many times as children we are told old wives tales. Each family has their own collection that have been passed down from generation to generation. Like coveted recipes, these tales have been shared, laughed at, and loved because they make us more naïve and innocent. They make us human and the human beings that we are.